Madoff Accomplice Sued for $19.6B

Does it ever end? An Austrian banker was accused of colluding with Bernie Madoff to defraud investors, in the biggest Madoff-victims' lawsuit to date. The $19.6 billion action comes two years after Madoff admitted that his entire business hinged on “one big lie” and revealed one of the largest frauds in Wall Street history. Court-appointed trustee Irving Picard said without banker Sonja Kohn, "The Ponzi scheme could not have continued for as long as it did." Picard accuses Kohn and others of 22 counts of civil racketeering, conspiracy and fraud. “In Sonja Kohn, Madoff found a criminal soul mate, whose greed and dishonest inventiveness equaled his own," Picard added in a statement. Last year, Kohn told the Wall Street Journal that she believed she was the “greatest Madoff victim.”